Your definition of 'good rp'

According to a novel or chronicles, Lor’themar is ‘happy’ to see them returning to Silvermoon or something.

Yeah, they’re in the Ghostlands.

Wait they are?

Yeah, they helped take the pressure off the Farstriders who were (understandably) spread thin by their duties.

“Since the Sunfury have returned to us,” Lor’themar began, "and our position in the Ghostlands is more… secure… the Farstriders are finding themselves stretched a bit less. They— I —would send you regular supplies."

Well, thank you.

Lot’s of points mentioned here that most of us can agree on are considered part of “good roleplay”, would like to add some personal points myself:

  • Specific themes used to somewhat elevate RP and not just for the sake of having them (example: dark/edgy themes)
  • using whispers/guild-/raid-chat as a OOC tool in RP. (like clearing up miscommunications or notifiying that you’ll be going offline soon so they won’t bring up anything that would be in your char’s best interest to stay for much longer)
  • using a proper appearance of your character and using the TRP addon properly(IE: having or reading through the first glances boosts RP imo)

And I cannot agree more with this:

RP for the sake of personal gain or even without any interest by yourself is very VERY hard to be considered good RP.

Edit: spelling check also sorry if this all seems too pet peevy :sweat_smile:

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When I came into AD, I was surprised that everyone labeled everyone else as either good RP or bad RP, as if there was some sort of objective way to measure and judge people’s RP.

It felt a cheap way to coerce other players into following the big crowd: ultimately, the sooner you form your own standards of quality and find other points of reference towards which you should adhere to, rather than what other people tell you, the better.

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:point_up: This x100.

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Unlike real life, communism works in RP and democracy can cause drama surprisingly.

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Basic adherence to the setting, both in terms of lore and its tone.
Embracing that you’re ultimately playing a character, and other people are - that a character isn’t some meta reflection of a person.
Cooperating with other players and characters.

Kael’thas isn’t the best example as others have said, but I think your point is good. A good example in the same line of argument might be the actions of Xe’ra, Saurfang being alive, and so on, though - all of which I’ve seen at various points from people who really shouldn’t know the truth. It’s not implausible that some characters might know, of course, but a lot of people don’t consider it.

I don’t agree or rather I agree but think this is a massive cop-out as an answer and isn’t really related to roleplay specifically

Sure you can say if you’re doing roleplay you love + other people around you love it too, that is the ideal - but in my eyes that is like saying “good RP is good because it’s good”

By that standard if someone who has never roleplayed but nevertheless had a generous heart ran up to me and traded me 1 million gp you that would be good roleplay because I’d like it

I agree that having fun is the goal of RP (obviously) but I don’t think you can say that finding something fun will make it good

On topic for me the top tier of roleplayer would be someone who plays a character instead of an avatar - who is willing to avoid too much OOC micromanagement / OOC drama and just react as their character would where they reasonably. Completely detatched is the ideal but kind of unrealistic

I feel like a few people I’ve encountered recently play their characters as if they’re aware they’re in a video game - ie. they don’t really fear death or harm, they don’t really have any worries or agendas unless it serves some social RP purpose at a given time (only to be discarded when it becomes detrimental) and are aware that they can instantly become immune to any problems they may encounter in their life at their leisure. They might enter conflict RP but they will only ever play it on their own terms - ie. they’re willing to engage with villains only if they’re assured a quick victory by the latest batch of patch notes and become almost offended when other players are not willing to play only as social RP props / NPC fodder for their latest Second Life session. If this doesn’t apply to you or at the very least you try to avoid the urge to do this kind of stuff, you are probably a good roleplayer IMO

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The ability to seperate IC from OOC is the most important factor imo.

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Good point there. What more i meant is achieving the goal people seek via RPing, but indeed those apply, and so do other things! :slight_smile:

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It’s all about authenticity to me.

So a good RP’er to me would be someone who can play their character in a way that makes you believe it and makes you believe it actually belongs to the world it is played in, in this case the WoW universe, regardless if the concept of the given character then strictly fits confirmed official lore down to the last point or don’t really but still is played in a way that makes you believe that it does anyway.

Hard to pin point what exactly makes a character appear authentic, but to play one I would think it probably requires to be able to both be aware that the character is an individual entity somewhat disconnected from your own personality and at the same time also being able to actually empathize with the feelings of that character.

That it of course also will require a good deal of imagination and the ability to immerse oneself should really be self explanatory.

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This is something more fit for the pet peeve thread, but I think - due to game mechanics and the steady power creep of a playable RPG - people tend to forget how dangerous Azeroth actually is.

For example, abominations have - canonically - taken large groups of people to take down. Not to mention there are zones where everything is toxic and wants to kill you or everything is undead and wants to kill you.

Azeroth isn’t your walk down the local park to break up a dull evening.

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I’m of the opinion that good roleplay happens when people are respectful of and considerate towards the people that they are roleplaying with. If I enjoy roleplaying with someone, then I’ll do what I can to make sure that they enjoy the roleplay as well. If I don’t enjoy roleplaying with someone, I just don’t roleplay with them. This is a hobby after all.

Does this person put a lot of value on the lore, and their immersion is easily broken by anything that doesn’t adhere to their perception of the lore? Okay, I’ll do what I can to play according to their perception of the lore.
Does that person want a chance to be a big bloody hero and do a lot of cool stuff? Okay, I’ll try my best to give them an opportunity to be the star of the show and have a spotlight over them.
Does this person like to avoid conflict when it comes to roleplaying? Sure, I’ll try to avoid causing any sort of fight, social or physical, at least for as long as they’re involved.
Does that person enjoy a more light-hearted and casual take on the setting, where the world of Warcraft isn’t particularly large or dangerous, and it’s just a campy walk in the park? I’ll try to cater to that.

It doesn’t matter if you’re the most nonchalant ‘Second Life roleplayer’ around or a deadly serious lore diehard that never goes out-of-character. If you’re respectful and considerate towards the people that you roleplay with, you’re a good roleplayer in my book.
I’ll only start whipping out accusations of ‘bad roleplayer’ if someone’s being disrespectful and discouraging towards the very people that they’re roleplaying with. Literally just stop roleplaying with them, man, and find something better to do with your time, if you’re not fond of how they’re roleplaying. No one’s holding a gun to your head and making you play with those people. Everyone’s got their own subscription and it’s up to them how they decide to use it.

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An aspect of good RP to me is to make the RP flow.
Which is why I keep my emotes and dialogue quick and simple.
I loathe having to wait several minutes to be slammed down with 3 paragraphs of emotes.
It just kills the RP flow for me and reads like a book, instead of immersing me in a living breathing world.

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Sounds like you love to sacrifice your own enjoyment on the altar of other people’s whims

Is the server crowd-funding your subscription or something

I think you’re generally just taking “good roleplay” to mean “being really nice”

Someone tripping over their feet to accommodate me doesn’t necessarily make their character more compelling / their ability to tell a story any better

Without paying some mind to risk there’s really no payoff to a lot of roleplay. Who cares if your character was part of a daring assault on (f/ex) Deathholme if they just went super saiyan instantly and bounced the various abominations off the walls

Who cares if your character is taken prisoner by the enemy faction during a campaign if they just say ((sorry, I don’t accept anything at all)) - everyone knows that they will wordlessly escape & the unfortunate souls who decided to roleplay the capture will in some ways be forced to RP accommodating that, even if it breaks their own character

Who cares if your character is a fearless anti-Sylvanas rebel when you know / roleplay in a way that makes it pretty obvious that your character has achieved CHIM and knows they can access the game console IC

and so on

t. pet peeves poster also

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Who said that I was sacrificing my own enjoyment by doing any of those things? My fun isn’t so fragile that it’s destroyed the moment I take a single step outside of my comfort zone. Besides, if they adhere to my definition of a good roleplayer, they’re more likely to take my preferences as a roleplayer into consideration, which leads to us finding a middle ground that we can both enjoy.

Or maybe I think that a compelling story can only be crafted with someone that I am able to respect and who respects me in turn. If either party lacks consideration for the other, that’s going to hurt the quality of any story that’s produced.

You’re welcome to disagree. After all, this thread’s about the subjective definition of ‘good rp.’

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